Talk:On the Origin of Species: Trapinch, Vibrava and Flygon

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Revision as of 13:23, 27 July 2010 by Xan Hutcheon (talk | contribs)
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Out of curiosity, why ignore the elephant in the room and make absolutely no mention of Vibrava and Flygon's obvious similarity to dragonflies? Sure,adult antlions and dragonflies aren't the same species, but the differences between the two are barely noticeable to anyone who isn't a bug expert. It is therefore possible that Vibrava and Flygon got their dragon typing from the from the dragonfly, rather than their references as mythological beasts in ancient bestiaries (a weak connection to the dragon type, in my opinion). In fact, there are some species of dragonflies referred to as sand dragons. Anyway, just thought it odd that there wasn't any reference to dragonflies considering their similar appearance. --Oleandervine 08:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Well... you're right that there's a physical resemblance between the adult antlion and the dragonfly, but Japanese doesn't seem to make the connection between dragonflies and dragons: none of the Japanese terms for dragonfly are related to dragons. In addition, we have an actual dragonfly Pokemon (Yanma) who doesn't have Dragon typing, so I don't think Vibrava and Flygon's Dragon typing is related to their dragonfly resemblance. That said, it's not something I can state for certain. I felt that the Dragon typing was more likely due to their status as mythical beasts, since the Dragon type has a tendency to be slapped onto Pokemon for slightly nebulous reasons (Dialga, Palkia and Garchomp seem to have little in common with traditional dragons of either Japanese or Western origin). I concur that my reasoning within the article could be stronger, and I usually avoid stating things I'm not totally convinced of, but I wanted to at least give some sort of acknowledgement to the dragon issue because it's something that people would be wondering about. George Hutcheon 13:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)